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India Unrest Puts 21 Million in Dark as Google Threatened

Indian supporters of united Andhra Pradesh shout slogans as they block the road with burning barricades during a protest against the formation of Telangana state, in Ananthapuram district on Oct. 4, 2013. Photographer: Noah Seelam/AFP/Getty Images

Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Protests against a plan to split a
southern Indian state entered a fourth day, leaving about 21
million people without electricity as outages threatened to
affect technology companies like Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

Striking workers shuttered power plants and impeded
distribution, extending blackouts that started Oct. 6 in six
districts of Andhra Pradesh. The protesters oppose Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh’s move last week to divide the state
before national elections due by May.

“It’s as if the world has come to a standstill,” Buchi
Babu Tanuku, who works with a local daily newspaper in the
state, said by phone from West Godavari district. “Everyone’s
staying indoors as there’s nothing much to do.”

The standoff risks disrupting the power supply to an area
about the size of Spain that holds 20 percent of the country’s
1.2 billion people. The division will help Singh’s Congress
party win some seats in the newly created state of Telangana as
it pushes to extend its nine-year rule, according to N. Bhaskara
Rao, chairman of the New Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies.

“The situation is becoming worse as there is no leader
there having some credibility to tackle the problem,” Rao said.
“This mess will not subside before the election. Protests will
continue in one way or other.”

Employee Talks

The striking employees have declined Chief Minister N.
Kiran Kumar Reddy’s request to return to work, A. Satya Rao, his
press secretary, said by phone from Hyderabad. Talks with the
employees will continue tomorrow after failing to yield any
results today, he said.

Mobs this week have thrown stones at police, set tires on
fire and damaged buses in Seemandhra, which will remain part of
Andhra Pradesh. The protesters want the state to keep Hyderabad,
India’s sixth-largest city that will fall in Telangana.

The city, home to offices of Microsoft, Google and Facebook
Inc., will function as the common capital for both states for a
period of 10 years, according to the decision by Singh’s
cabinet. Control of Hyderabad is a key reason behind the
protests, Reddy told CNN-IBN television news channel on Oct. 6.

Hyderabad has seen a three-hour daily power cut as about
60,000 utility workers have stayed home to protest the new
state, according to a top official in the local government’s
electricity department who requested anonymity as he isn’t an
authorized spokesman. That has removed 3,600 megawatts of
generation capacity, or 20 percent of the state’s total, he
said.

Grid Risk

Failure to contain the demonstrations may prompt further
distribution cuts to sustain a power grid that connects all of
southern India. Talks with the labor unions of state power
plants are on to prevent a repeat of last year’s collapse of the
northern power grid that left an area inhabited by almost half
of the population without electricity.

“Everything is intact,” said G. Anbunesan, chief of
disaster management in the region at Power System Operation
Corp., which operates the grid. “So far, there’s no problem.”

In the worst case, authorities would have the option of
isolating Andhra Pradesh from the southern grid, according to
Debasish Mishra, head of energy practice at Deloitte Touche
Tohmatsu India Pvt. in Mumbai.

“Because of the blackouts, the load has already gone down
significantly,” he said. “As long as they are able to match
the demand and supply, the grid should be fine.”

Representatives of Google and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories said
the companies have yet to be affected. The government has
provided extra security to Tech Mahindra Ltd., controlled by
Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., India’s biggest maker of tractors and
utility vehicles, Aashish Washikar, a spokesman, said by phone.

‘Self-Flagellation’

“We have had no interruptions due to power cuts or any
other factors,” Carson Dalton, head of corporate affairs at
Facebook India, said by phone. “It’s business as usual.”

Outside of Hyderabad, the situation is becoming dire.
Offices, schools and universities have closed. Private hospitals
are running on generators, and non-critical surgeries have been
postponed. Streets are almost empty as petrol stations are shut.

“Food prices are rising as supply is going down,” Patri
Rajasekhar, who sells mobile-phone SIM cards, said from Nellore,
one of the affected areas. “It’s like self-flagellation.”

The 50-year-old campaign for Telangana’s statehood got new
life in December 2009 when Singh’s government backed the idea as
a local leader’s hunger strike triggered protests that closed
roads and offices. The government made little effort to finalize
the plan as demonstrators for and against the new state clashed
on the streets.

India created three new states -- Jharkhand, Uttarakhand
and Chhattisgarh -- in 2000. The country has 28 provinces and
seven union territories that are administered by the central
government.